The last few days have been very trying for me, physically and emotionally. Don’t worry, I’ll pull through, but don’t get concerned if it looks like I’m maintaining radio silence – I am, but only because I need some time to hide away in an undisclosed location and recharge.

before I go, though, I wanted to touch upon a couple of pleasant highlights from a period that was otherwise pretty damned stressful:

First, I had the honor of playing a small part in figuratively throwing a couple of pretty great teenagers over the bridge to “adulthood” (whatever that means) this weekend. I’ve spent a good part of the past year playing at being an advisor and mentor of sorts, and have been continually impressed with their engagement, energy, ideas, and humor (as well as their general tolerance of my old-fogieness). They’re both way more prepared to take on the world than I was at that age, and I can’t wait to see what they do next. Congratulations on the milestone, E and J.

Also this weekend, I spent a couple of hours with some of the Richmond Comix Encounters group running through the open playtest of “D&D Next”. There’s a new version of the iconic pen & paper RPG in the works, and the playtest is a chance for the publishers to put a “rough draft” version in the hands of a population of gamers in order to see how it works in “real world” conditions, who then report back with their experiences and findings. Essentially, it’s what I do for my real job, but this time, I get to try and break fun stuff instead of dry business software.

As for the experience? It was terribly enjoyable. The new rules play a lot like the very early editions of the game, making it much different than the current 4th edition. The table was largely made of up a experienced grognards who’ve been playing for decades, and we all spent a lot of time looking at each other with smiles on our faces talking about how “old school” it all felt and how it was tripping our nostalgia circuits, opening up memories of middle school afternoons around some kid’s kitchen table, sneaking the rogue around corners while balancing resources. It required a tremendous shift in thinking after playing 4E for the last half-decade. Thankfully, they’ve worked in enough modern tweaks to ensure that a first level wizard isn’t totally useless after expending his single daily spell slot.

That’s not to say that the system is perfect just yet – there’s a lot of rough around the edges, and some things that are contradictory or don’t work quite right; things like how to run surprise rounds, and exactly how some of the new healing rules work, for example. I’m already a big fan of the “advantage/disadvantage” mechanic, though – it adds an interesting wrinkle to the proceedings. I’m looking forward to the next iteration to see how they refine things, and so I can learn more about character creation. But mostly, I want to try out the new “intoxicated” condition to see how it plays.

And with that, I’m going to go hide under my blanket for a couple of days.